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eacon, N.Y.
IN most ways, it's not much - a modest gaff-rigged Hudson River ferry sloop, hundreds of which once plied the waters of the river. The deck needs major repairs, a squirrel has taken a bite out of the jib, the hull's been rebuilt, and it has already outlived its expected life span. It will never win a big-time sailing competition.
"This thing does not go quickly dead into the wind,'' Kip Touraine, the captain du jour, said in respectful understatement as the Woody Guthrie set sail one still, humid evening last week.
Still, when Mr. Touraine set out at 6 on the Woody's nightly sail, with 12 members of the Fishkill Creek Watershed Committee on board, it felt like a small miracle.
The Woody got its start in 1978, paid for from the pocket of the folk singer Pete Seeger, back when the Hudson was still just beginning to climb back after having been written off as a fetid industrial cesspool of a river.
Since then the Hudson has made a remarkable recovery, as have dozens of Hudson Valley towns like this one, once a postindustrial relic, now - unbelievably - a hip artists' enclave.
But one rare constant has been the Woody, which, weather permitting, has set sail every weeknight from early spring to late fall, taking up to 14 visitors on a two-hour sail along the river, just below the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.
Everyone who signs up in time sails for free. If you find a better bargain, please let me know.
As has been the case in recent years, keeping it going has been no small feat. The Woody needs about $28,000 in repairs to keep it seaworthy, and the money's not yet there.
Keeping up an all-volunteer operation that maintains the boat, arranges for its nightly visitors, and supplies a four- or five-man crew every night for almost three decades has taken the sort of commitment that comes from a mission, more than a job or an avocation.
But as the Woody sailed along in a fitful breeze, past sculls and kayaks, with the grand hulk of Bannerman Castle on an island to the south, the waterfront development in Newburgh to the west, the dark green blanket of the Highlands rising along the banks, you could feel all the old ghosts of the river and understand how the Woody has found a way to keep going.
Thirty-one-and-a-half-feet long, 47 feet high, as sturdy and unpretentious as its namesake, the Woody began as part of a dream that is still evolving. After the success of the sloop Clearwater, launched in the 1960's to raise environmental awareness about the Hudson, Mr. Seeger and others had a vision of sloop clubs along the river serving as loyal adjuncts to its educational mission.
Several sprang up and some have prospered, but none have done what the Woody, about a third the size of the Clearwater, has in terms of taking so many people for sails, so regularly, for so long.
In the beginning, the idea was to show how badly the river had been despoiled, at least as much as it was to glory in its tarnished majesty. Now, an outing can be a thing of quiet bliss, but the 200 members of the Beacon Sloop Club, who keep the enterprise going, say better times on the river have not dulled the mission.
"We can't turn our backs now; we have to be forever watchful,'' said Tom Baldino, a volunteer captain, noting rising temperatures in the river, the uncertain status of G.E.'s court-ordered PCB cleanup and other issues. "It's a thrill for a lot of people to go out on a boat like the Woody, but I also think it's a public service.''
Still, public service or not, it's something of a grind that brings to mind the adage that a boat owner's two greatest days are the day he buys his boat and the day he sells it. The Woody has a small 72-volt motor that augments the sails on windless days, and allows the boat to dock and take on handicapped passengers.
It was out of the water the last two years, as its hull and screws were replaced at substantial cost. The deck is the next job, part of the endless bad marriage of wooden boat and fresh water.
"They say a boat is a hole in the water you throw money into,'' said Saul Rozinsky, president of the Beacon Sloop Club, which operates out of what used to be the diner at the old ferry landing in Beacon. "And in the case of the Woody, you have the case where fresh water is trying to turn wood into peat moss."
Still, on this night, the Woody seemed more a co-conspirator than an adversary for the river. The boat creaked and groaned. The mainsail rippled in the soft breeze. Bass jumped out of the water. A hazy sun sank behind the horizon, and the Woody headed for home.
Bill Hudson
rocknrollwoman
ShadowMom
